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Care Opinion

Appointment cancellations

Posted By AhmedM

"Appointment cancellations"

About: Avenue House

(as a service user),

I am a service user at Avenue House. I am writing in regards to cancellation of appointments.

My last 3 appointments have been cancelled without any prior notice and without a proper explanation as to why the appointments were cancelled. Similarly, I managed to attend one appointment where I was informed by the admin team that I could not be seen because the computer systems were not working. I was there to see and talk a human being & a doctor and not a computer system. I would not have minded much if the doctor would have come to say hi and see how i was getting on with my meds and life in general. At another time I was left to sit and wait because the Dr was running late....he never showed up. I was not seen on that day and was told to wait for a letter entailing my next appointment. 
As you can appreciate, on every occasion, I have to take a day off from work so that I can attend this much needed session. I am left to feel that your team does not consider my mental health to be a priority.
On all occasion I asked if I can see other doctors if my dr is not available. The answer was no and I can only see the Dr I was assigned to.
I feel that this culture at Avenue House is unacceptable and that you should change how your staff deals with the vulnerable service users that really require the mental health services that have been put in place for them.
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Responses

Response from West London NHS Trust 6 years ago
West London NHS Trust

Submitted on 06/03/2018 at 08:02
Published on Care Opinion at 09:30

Hi, I am sorry that you have had to take time raising your concerns about Avenue House. I have spoken with your Doctor and he informed me that you did have three cancellations since October 2017.

The first appointment was on 31st of October 2017; this OPA was cancelled as the Doctor was on annual leave. A long notice was given regarding annual leave and this appointment was brought forward to 18th October 2017. However I understand you could not make this rescheduled appointment as you had another appointment at this time.

The second appointment was on 23rd January 2018 when we experienced IT problems. The room allocated to the Doctor did not have RIO access (this is our IT system that we use) and all other rooms were engaged. It took time to locate a room which had RIO access and you understandably could not wait that long.

Unfortunately the IT issues is a frequent problem at Avenue House and we also have a shortage of clinic rooms. I have escalated the issue with IT. We did create one extra clinic room a couple of years ago at Avenue House, but the demand for clinic rooms remains high. Currently we are not able to create any more rooms within the current building.

The third appointment was on 16th February 2018 when the clinic had to be cancelled due to the Doctor needing to take urgent carers leave -this is regrettable however unavoidable.

I can completely understand your frustrations and I raised these with your Doctor for his response and he also stated that he could understand your frustrations. Unfortunately all our Doctors are usually in clinics and you therefore could not see another Doctor at the times you attended. We do have duty that can see clients in emergencies - this is staffed by nurses, social workers and occupational therapists on a rota basis.

I appreciate that you have had wasted time off work to attend these appointments but the issues have been unavoidable. However, I have raised this with the Doctor and his senior. We apologise for you feeling dissatisfied with Avenue House and have appreciated your raising your concerns.

Regards

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